COLUMBUS — “Since August, drilling companies have filed 11 so-called ‘unitization’ requests with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Each request sought access to Utica shale oil and gas buried beneath the unwilling property owners’ land.

The new requests, three of which have been approved, involve 38 landowners, businesses and public agencies that did [...]]]>

COLUMBUS — “Since August, drilling companies have filed 11 so-called ‘unitization’ requests with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Each request sought access to Utica shale oil and gas buried beneath the unwilling property owners’ land.

The new requests, three of which have been approved, involve 38 landowners, businesses and public agencies that did not sign mineral-rights leases with drilling companies.

The law allows companies to add unwilling properties to large drilling units to maximize access to oil and gas as long as at least 65 percent of the acres in a unit have been leased.In July 2012, the state had approved one such request.

The properties in these newest requests cover more than 674 acres in Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson and Trumbull counties. Critics of shale drilling and fracking say unitization violates basic property rights.”

— Spencer Hunt, Columbus Dispatch

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COLUMBUS — “Ohio has become a dumping ground for the fracking industry that has boomed in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and, most recently, eastern Ohio. Records from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) show that Ohio’s 179 underground disposal wells have absorbed more than 1 billion gallons of fracking wastewater [...]]]>

(Photo: ProgressOhio / Flickr)

COLUMBUS — “Ohio has become a dumping ground for the fracking industry that has boomed in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and, most recently, eastern Ohio. Records from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) show that Ohio’s 179 underground disposal wells have absorbed more than 1 billion gallons of fracking wastewater since 2010, with much of the waste coming from Pennsylvania and other states.

Oil and gas drilling produces millions of gallons of salty wastewater – known as ‘brine’ in industry lingo – often laced with harmful chemicals and radioactive material from deep underground. Wastewater from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale formation, a hotspot for gas drilling, can be particularly radioactive. A 2011 study by the US Geological Survey found that the level of radioactive radium in a brine sample from Pennsylvania was 300 times higher than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s limit for industrial discharges.

…Young is concerned about the people living there. Who would want to live in the shadow of a waste depot? ‘It’s amazing,’ she says. ‘There is no public input.’ Young, who discovered the barging proposal on GreenHunter Energy’s web site, says state regulators did not issue any public notices or permits for the facility because the fracking wastewater is only stored there temporarily.”

— Mike Ludwig, Truthout

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WEST, TX — “The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. [...]]]>

The remains of a fertilizer plant burn after an explosion at the plant in the town of West, near Waco, Texas, in this April 18, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Stone/Files

WEST, TX — “The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. federal law intended to save lives during chemical accidents, a Reuters investigation has found.

Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the law requires companies to tell emergency responders about the hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. But even when companies do so, the law stops there: After the paperwork is filed, it is up to the companies and local firefighters, paramedics and police to plan and train for potential disasters.

West Fertilizer Co of West, Texas, had a spotty reporting record. Still, it had alerted a local emergency-planning committee in February 2012 that it stored potentially deadly chemicals at the plant. Firefighters and other emergency responders never acted upon that information to train for the kind of devastating explosion that happened 14 months later, according to interviews with surviving first responders, a failing that likely cost lives.”

— M.B. Pell, Ryan McNeill, Janet Roberts, Reuters

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WASHINGTON, DC — “In a rare display of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, a group of key senators unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require chemical companies to provide more health and safety information about their products and give regulators more power to force harmful compounds off the market.

The compromise bill, supported by some health [...]]]>

WASHINGTON, DC — “In a rare display of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, a group of key senators unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require chemical companies to provide more health and safety information about their products and give regulators more power to force harmful compounds off the market.

The compromise bill, supported by some health advocates and the chemical industry’s chief trade group, would overhaul a 1976 federal law that by all accounts has failed to protect Americans from harmful chemicals added to household products, including furniture, baby products, toys and electronics.

Sponsored by Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Republican David Vitter of Louisiana, the proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act for the first time would require the Environmental Protection Agency to review the safety of more than 84,000 industrial chemicals, many of which already were on the market when Congress last acted on the issue nearly four decades ago.”

— Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune

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BATON ROUGE, LA — “Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed [...]]]>

The 2,400-acre ExxonMobil petrochemical complex in Baton Rouge, La.

BATON ROUGE, LA — “Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed especially foul — ‘like some sort of chemical,’ she recalls.

Bowman found her daughter crying over a migraine. Her neighbors experienced headaches, dizziness, nausea. One family reported a toddler son coughing up phlegm; another, an elderly father collapsing on the floor. She soon suspected the cause: A leak of ‘steam-cracked’ naphtha, a liquid mixture of volatile petrochemicals, occurring at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge petrochemical complex a half mile away

Four hours earlier, Exxon operators detected an odor in the East area tank field and discovered a ‘bleeder’ valve on Tank 801 dripping naphtha into a sewer. The leaky valve dumped 411 barrels into the underground system, company records filed with the state show. The liquid traveled a mile before pouring into a separator pit, vaporizing along the way, and releasing tens of thousands of pounds of benzene and other toxic chemicals into the air.”

— Kristen Lombardi and Andrea Fuller, Center for Public Integrity

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Some of the gas plants date to the 1800s, when communities used [...]]]> COLUMBUS — “Natural-gas utilities want to change the law to make clear that consumers rather than shareholders can be charged cleanup costs for about 90 abandoned natural-gas plants in the state, according to an amendment that might get tucked into the state budget.

Some of the gas plants date to the 1800s, when communities used coal and other fuels to manufacture natural gas for use in lighting. The plants have all shut down, leaving polluted sites that have largely been absorbed by the state’s major utilities.

Some of those utilities, led by Duke Energy, are asking lawmakers to approve an amendment that would expand the companies’ ability to charge customers for cleaning up the sites. The proposal is one of more than a thousand items that groups are hoping to add to the budget, often with little discussion of the implications.”

— Dan Gearino, The Columbus Dispatch

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FORT COLLINS, CO — “The only oil and gas production company working in Fort Collins can go back to work.

The City Council late Tuesday voted to lift a citywide moratorium on oil and gas operations as it applies to Prospect Energy. The vote was 4-3, with council members Ross [...]]]>

Fort Collins City Council

FORT COLLINS, CO — “The only oil and gas production company working in Fort Collins can go back to work.

The City Council late Tuesday voted to lift a citywide moratorium on oil and gas operations as it applies to Prospect Energy. The vote was 4-3, with council members Ross Cunniff, Bob Overbeck and Lisa Poppaw opposed.

Council members also approved by the same vote an amended operating agreement with Prospect Energy that spells out how it may work in the Fort Collins Field, an oil field on the northeast corner of city limits, as well as a 2-square-mile area near the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

The agreement holds the company to standards that are stricter that those of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, or COGCC, which regulates the oil and gas industry statewide, city officials said.”

— Kevin Duggan, The Coloradoan

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WASHINGTON D.C. — “On May 16, the Obama Interior Department announced its long-awaited rules governing hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) on federal lands.

As part of its 171-page document of rules, the U.S. Bureau of Land [...]]]>

Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy, speaks before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in Washington, April 9, 2013.

WASHINGTON D.C. — “On May 16, the Obama Interior Department announced its long-awaited rules governing hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) on federal lands.

As part of its 171-page document of rules, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the U.S. Dept. of Interior (DOI), revealed it will adopt the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bill written by ExxonMobil for fracking chemical fluid disclosure on U.S. public lands.

ALEC is a 98-percent corporate-funded bill mill and ‘dating service’ that brings predominantly Republican state legislators and corporate lobbyists together at meetings to craft and vote on ‘model bills‘ behind closed doors. Many of these bills end up snaking their way into statehouses and become law in what Bill Moyers referred to as ‘The United States of ALEC.’”

— Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog

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SPRINGFIELD, IL — “A bill to regulate horizontal hydraulic fracturing in Illinois sailed through a House committee Tuesday morning in a unanimous vote amid chants of ‘shame’ from a massive opposition group of activists and residents who packed the hearing.

…With his 2010 [...]]]>

Opponents of fracking legislation pack the Illinois Capitol for hearings Tuesday.

SPRINGFIELD, IL — “A bill to regulate horizontal hydraulic fracturing in Illinois sailed through a House committee Tuesday morning in a unanimous vote amid chants of ‘shame’ from a massive opposition group of activists and residents who packed the hearing.

…With his 2010 film about fracking, which documented sickness, contaminated groundwater and the industrialization of communities from such drilling operations, Fox became a lightning rod for debate. Websites and at least one documentary, sponsored by the oil and gas industries, attempt to discredit him.

Sandra Steingraber, an activist, biologist and cancer survivor, told attendees that they’d been abandoned by the same national environmental groups that helped stop fracking in New York.

‘You’ve been dealt a very bad hand in Illinois by people who should be your friends,’ she said.”

— Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune

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